HUDSON BAY A NATIONAL ASSET 



I. Animal Products. 



By far the most valuable animal product is the Right, 

 JBowhead or Oreenland Whale, which is found in the 

 northern parts of Hudson Bay and Strait. It is the species 

 from which the whalebone of commerce is derived, as well 

 as a large amount of valuable oil. It is deeply to be re- 

 gretted that these precious creatures are much less abundant 

 than they were some years ago, but still they are well 

 worth the looking after, as the commercial value of a single 

 specimen ranges from ten to twenty thousand dollars, 

 depending upon the size and consequent production of bone 

 and oil. 



According to a statement contained in the report of Lieut. 

 A. R. Gordon (1886), the average value of each whaling 

 cargo from the year 1846 to 1875 was $47,220, and accord- 

 ing to the report of A. P. Low (1904),. from information 

 supplied by the noted American whaler. Captain George 

 Cromer, the average value of a whaling cargo from Hudson 

 Bay between the years 1891 and 1904 was about $35,000 — 

 sixty-eight whales having been captured upon nineteen 

 whaling voyages, all of which latter were American. 



Perhaps second in importance and value to the Eight 

 AVhale fishery is that of the White Whale — a much smaller 

 though a very much more abundant animal. In point of 

 numbers I would judge that the white whale far exceeds all 

 other species of water mammals combined, for in many 

 places and at various times I have seen the surface of the 

 bay appear as a living, plunging mass of white from the 

 presence of great schools of these creatures ; nor do they 

 appear to be appreciably diminishing, as some other animals 

 are. I observed them in apparently as great numbers about 

 tiie mouths of the Churchill and Nelson rivers in 1905 as I 

 had in the same localities twenty years before, although 

 large numbers of them are annually captured at various 



237 



